Samuel lifted the candle.
Clara whispered:
“Well.”
He looked toward her.
“You were right.”
“About?”
“Someone.”
Clara’s expression remained tight.
“Do not celebrate yet.”
The stairway was too narrow for her.
Samuel hated that immediately.
He could descend.
She could not.
“I’m going alone.”
“No.”
“There is physically no argument here.”
Clara looked at the narrow opening.
Then at herself.
For once, architecture won.
She disliked it visibly.
Samuel handed her the pistol he kept above the mantel.
“If someone comes up behind me—”
“I know how to use it.”
“I know.”
He took the candle and rifle.
Clara caught his sleeve.
“Samuel.”
He turned.
“Come back.”
The words were simple.
Her eyes were not.
He touched her hand.
“I will.”
Then descended.
The stairs dropped perhaps twelve feet.
At the bottom was stone.
Not natural.
A cellar.
Old.
Much older than Samuel’s pantry enclosure.
Shelves lined one side.
Mostly empty.
Broken jars.
A rusted hoop.
Wooden crates collapsed by damp.
At the rear, a narrow tunnel disappeared into darkness.
Samuel’s grandfather had never mentioned any cellar.
Neither had his father.
Samuel moved slowly.
The tunnel was barely high enough.
Cold earth smell.
Water dripping.
Ten yards.
Twenty.
Then it widened.
He found footprints.
Small.
Human.
Fresh.
Samuel crouched.
Barefoot?
No.
Soft leather shoes.
Child-sized.
His chest tightened.
“Hello?”
Nothing.
He continued.
The passage rose.
At the end stood another wooden door.
Light showed beneath it.
Samuel stopped.
Not firelight.
Daylight.
Faint.
Blue.
He pushed.
The door opened into the cellar of another cabin.
Samuel knew the place immediately.
He had not seen the inside in fifteen years.
But he knew where he was.
The Hale homestead.
An abandoned house almost half a mile uphill.
Its owner, old Jacob Hale, had died three winters earlier.
Everyone believed the place empty.
Samuel climbed.
Dust.
Rot.
Broken furniture.
Then a sound.
Breathing.
He turned.
A little girl stood behind him holding a knife.
Perhaps nine years old.
Thin.
Too thin.
Dark hair chopped unevenly at her shoulders.
Her dress was patched beyond recognition.
The knife trembled.
Samuel froze.
“Hello.”
She did not answer.
He lowered the rifle slowly.
“My name is Samuel.”
The girl’s eyes widened.
She knew.
“You know who I am?”
No response.
He placed the rifle on the floor.